Dan Soutar

That’s lazy

The Health and Social Care Committee’s evaluation of palliative care in England was published yesterday.

It’s hugely important, not least in the context of the assisted dying bill.

It’s had almost no media coverage.

committees.parliament.uk/publications...

Examples of solutions have existed for several years (eg @iownhs.bsky.social ambulance service, @nhswalesexecutive.bsky.social Wales ambulance service) so why are these not being taken up by other areas?

New open access article in Supportive Care in Cancer: Medicinal cannabis for symptom control in advanced cancer: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomised clinical trial of 1:1 tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#SuppOnc #PallOnc

Half of UK adults worried about painful death Almost half (47%) of UK adults are worried that they or their loved ones will have a painful or undignified death, according to a survey commissioned by King’s College London.

Improving palliative and end-of-life care has never been more important.

I am thrilled to announce the Impact Centre for Palliative and End-of-Life Care, which will accelerate better care for dying people by closing the gap between evidence and practice.

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/half-of...

Also 🦚

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

That pathway already exists - medical school

5p

Jamilla is absolutely right!
Being poor, old damp housing, social isolation etc etc
Suffering happens in multiple domains, all of which badly need addressed

Unfortunately, I think you could be right. If AD at its heart is considered a treatment for intolerable suffering, it will be hard to restrict it to arbitrary parameters - especially the prognosis estimate

The oversimplification of the #AD debate is troubling. There are no 'goodies' & 'baddies' here, only people: with varying experience of living & dying, some with professional insights into applying law to medicine in complex circs, or into the myriad ways people & medicine respond to illness.
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It’s been an honour to make this programme.

Thanks for everyone who spoke to us.

Timely report into current planning & coordination of end of life care: National Confidedential Enq into Pt Outcomes & Death shows gaps in services, breaching 2019 NICE guidance for commissioning & providing adequate, timely planning & delivery of #EoL care & access to palliative care teams.
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And about 46m can’t think of a bigger waste of time

Inevitable

$525 😳

It’s our responsibility as docs to empower patients to make informed decisions & plan ahead. To do that properly means taking the time to discuss options. Also, I think terms like ‘refusal’ carry a lot of negative connotations & is often an unfair way to describe often reasonable, personal decisions

Don’t you think there’s a distinction between stopping trying to keep someone alive (allowing natural death) vs actively killing someone? It’s the difference between asking someone to stop doing something to you vs asking someone to do something to you. Quite different I think

The Meaning of Dignity: What’s beneath the assisted dying debate? Andrew Grey revisits his old report unpacking some of the fundamental ideas beneath the assisted dying debate. 01/11/2024

Have you read Andrew Grey’s piece on conceptions of dignity in this debate? My opposition is collective and communitarian - not religious or libertarian. www.theosthinktank.co.uk/research/202...

The uncomfortable truth about assisted dying Throughout all the questions, there is a baseline assumption that assisted dying will likely mean a smoother and calmer death. But does it?

Article from Prof Mark Taubert on the process of assisted dying / suicide. There is a reason why in Canada, where lethal drugs can be administered both orally and intravenously (IV), that the vast majority of people opt for IV.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-...